Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France

Selected Issues Papers, February 28, 2023

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Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France

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Bibliographic details

• Authors: Iulia Ruxandra Teodoru, Ruud Vermeulen
• Published: February 28, 2023
• Series: Selected Issues Papers
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400236334.018

Overview

• Purpose: To identify areas where scope for savings or efficiency gains exist in France to rebuild fiscal buffers after large fiscal responses to successive shocks over 2020-22.
• Key conclusion: France will need to reverse the trend spending increase observed over the last three decades through structural spending reforms.
• Sectors examined: social protection, health, education, civil service, and tax expenditures.
• Objective of reforms: Preserve or improve outcomes while generating savings to help meet medium-term adjustment needs.

Analytical approach

• Comparative evaluation of the level and efficiency of public spending in France relative to European peers.
• Methods used:
  • Benchmarking analysis.
  • Stochastic frontier analysis to derive efficiency frontiers.

Main findings

• There exist areas where savings or efficiency gains are feasible based on benchmarking and frontier analysis.
• Target areas for reform include:
  • Social protection.
  • Health.
  • Education.
  • Civil service.
  • Tax expenditures (rationalization).

Policy recommendations

• Implement structural spending reforms aimed at reversing the multi-decade trend of rising spending.
• Reform social protection, health, education, and civil service systems to preserve or improve outcomes while reducing costs.
• Rationalize tax expenditures to improve fiscal space without undermining policy objectives.
• Use identified efficiency gains and savings to rebuild fiscal buffers and meet medium-term adjustment needs.

Key statistics and publication identifiers

• Publication date: February 28, 2023
• Pages: 32
• Volume: 2023
• Issue: 014
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400236334.018
• ISBN: 9798400236334
• ISSN: 2958-7875
• Stock No: SIPEA2023014

Source: Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France, Selected Issues Paper No. 2023/014 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400236334.018).

Content in this bundle

• Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France; Selected Issues Paper No. 2023/014; January 10, 2023
  • Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France; Selected Issues Paper No. 2023/014; January 10, 2023 (Markdown version)
  • Spending Efficiency and Reforms: France; Selected Issues Paper No. 2023/014; January 10, 2023 (PDF)